Domestic bourses trade flat in early deals on Thursday

Domestic equity indices have made a flat-to-positive start as traders, before taking any positions in certain equities, awaiting development in Parliament, as Finance Minister P Chidambaram has expressed hope that opposition would cooperate in getting five key economic reforms bills passed in the ongoing winter session of Parliament. On the global front, the US markets made a mixed closing, losing most of their early gains as House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said that serious differences still remain in talks to avert the steep tax hikes, offsetting early leads of Fed announcement to the latest extension of its bond-purchasing program and low-interest rate policy. While, most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the green at this point of time as investors remain encouraged with advancement in Japanese Exporters after yen fell to an eight months low.

Back home, some strength also came in from PSU space which rose about half a percent, as the government witnessed strong participation from foreign investors and managed to mop up Rs 6,000 crore from the sale of its 10% stake in the iron ore miner NMDC. Some glitters were also seen in NBFC space, as RBI has issued new prudential norms which require NBFCs to have a tier-one capital adequacy ratio (CAR) of 12% by April 2014. At present, the tier-I requirement is 7.5% for NBFCs except those in infrastructure where it is 10% and for those lending against gold where it is already 12%.

On the sectoral front, auto witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by realty and oil and gas while, fast moving consumer goods, consumer durables and capital goods remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. Moreover, the broader indices were outperforming benchmarks. The market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1,037 shares on the gaining side against 581 shares on the losing side while 91 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 19,403.66; about 48 points higher compared to its previous closing of 19,355.26, and has touched a high and a low of 19,421.72 and 19,346.08 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 19,373.40, up by 18.14 points or 0.09%. There were 21 stocks advancing against 8 declines and 1 remains unchanged on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a positive start with 60.68% stocks advancing against 34.00% declines. The broader indices were outperforming benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices rose 0.40% and 0.28% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Auto up by 1.23%, Realty up by 0.87%, Oil & Gas up by 0.49%, Power up by 0.48% and Teck up by 0.47%. On the other hand, FMCG down by 1.59%, CD down by 0.42 and CG down by 0.10% were the few losers on the Sensex.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 2.62%, Hero MotoCorp up by 1.02%, Wipro up by 1.00%, ICICI Bank up by 0.95% and Bajaj Auto up by 0.94%.

On the flip side, Hindustan Unilever was down by 2.06%, ITC was down by 2.01%, L&T was down by 0.41%, Sun Pharma was down by 0.39% and Coal India was down by 0.38% were  the top loser on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, Oil Secretary G.C. Chaturvedi has said that the Government is likely to announce a shale gas exploration policy by December-end. Ruiling out any further delay Chaturvedi said “I am very confident that we will be able to bring out a shale gas policy by the end of this fiscal year as we are sticking to it”.

Due to the shortage of natural gas in the country and a projected increase in demand, the government is keen on shale gas exploration which would be an important new source of energy.

Currently, India does not allow the commercial extraction of shale gas. Public sector explorers ONGC and Oil India have taken up preliminary surveys to estimate the shale gas potential in the country. To bridge the growing demand-supply gap for petroleum products government is making all efforts for exploration of oil and gas in Indian sedimentary basins and abroad.

Further, Chaturvedi said the Open Acreage Licensing Policy is the way forward for exploration of conventional oil and gas blocks and launch of OALP has been delayed because of the National Data Centre, a prerequisite for the process, is yet to be set.

The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 5,900.35; about 12 points higher as compared to its previous closing of 5,888.00, and has touched a high and a low of 5,907.45 and 5,888.95 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,895.40, up by 7.40 points or 0.13%. There were 37 stocks advancing against 11 declines and 2 remain unchanged on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Tata Motors up by 2.68%, Lupin up by 1.25%, Cairn up by 1.23 %, DLF up by 1.20% and IDFC up by 1.16%.

On the flip side, Hindustan Unilever down by 2.23%, ITC down by 2.04%, Sun Pharma down by 0.61%, Coal India down by 0.51% and L&T down by 0.50%, were the top losers on the index.

Asian markets trade mostly in green; KLSE Composite was up by 0.66 points or 0.04% to 1,650.41, Nikkei 225 surged by 166.60 points or 1.74% to 9,748.06, Straits Times was up by 11.61 points or 0.37% to 3,153.18, Seoul Composite was up by 13.10 points or 0.66% to 1,988.54 and Taiwan Weighted was trading up by 57.03 points or 0.74% to 7,747.22.

On the other hand, Shanghai Composite was down by 14.19 points or 0.68% to 2,068.54 and Jakarta Composite was down by 30.64 points or 0.74% to 4,306.89, Hang Seng down by 0.35 points or 0.00% to 22,503.00.